Schools sustain low expectations through a silent bargain among teachers, counselors, and parents

Evidence

Haberman (1994) suggests that there is “pedagogy of poverty” in some schools, a kind of silent bargain between teachers and students, under which teachers offer little challenge to students—who in turn offer little open challenge to the teachers. New teachers who try to have higher expectations are faced with resistance by students who are used to the status quo, until the teacher gives in and offers a simpler task that allows them to disengage. If teachers don’t lower expectations, counselors may undermine them by transferring students out of their classes into less demanding classes, or veteran teachers will encourage them to “just give the students a worksheet.” Even parents sometimes participate in this culture of low expectations by complaining if students have too much homework (Haberman, 1994; Edmundson, 1998). — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1040

Categorization

• XREF: Directly supports the reader’s practical tool of seeing class reproduction mechanisms; connects forward to ch22 on tracking and the reader’s own polyad concern with structural barriers vs deficit thinking.